Penguin Group USA has plucked its first author from its new electronic slush pile.

Ace Books, an imprint of Penguin, has signed the debut novelist Kerry Schafer to a two-book deal, only weeks after Ms. Schafer posted writing samples on Bookcountry.com, a Web site Penguin introduced in April that invites writers of genre fiction to share their work.

Penguin created Book Country as a site where aspiring authors could post their writing and receive critiques from other users — with the hope that some of the writers might be good enough to publish under the Penguin name.

One of those early users, Ms. Schafer, began posting chapters from an unpublished novel that she had written — a story of geriatric vampires in a nursing home — early in the site’s days. The chapters attracted dozens of comments from other users, but no interest from agents or editors.

In November, Ms. Schafer, who lives in rural Washington State and has a day job as a mental health professional, tried again with “Between,” a fantasy novel about a woman named Vivian who must destroy a powerful sorceress.

That attracted the notice of Deidre Knight, a literary agent, who was browsing submissions on Book Country.

“I read the first 10 pages and said, yes, she definitely needs to send to us,” Ms. Knight said.

Within weeks, Ms. Knight had taken on Ms. Schafer as a client and negotiated a deal with Ace Books, which included a second book, “Wakeworld,” a novel that Ms. Schafer is in the early stages of writing.

Never, Ms. Schafer said, did she expect that an actual book deal would come out of her postings on the site.

“You always hope,” she said. “You always have in the back of your mind that maybe something like this will happen. It was an act of faith on my part.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 9, 2012

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